A year ago when we visited Graham Webb, his place was filled with a variety of European classics. Now, Land Rover Defenders have completely taken over. We find out why.
Words: Wilhelm Lutjeharms
Images: Devin Paisley
Graham Webb and Harley Nash’s enthusiasm and interest for cars, engineering and what they have created is evident. I first met them several years ago when they started coming together on selective week evenings to tinker with cars, restore them and, more importantly, to enjoy them.
That was already a decade ago. This enthusiasm has now matured, especially during 2024, into Journeymen Works which is a specialist business that focuses on Land Rover Defenders manufactured between 1999 and 2016. Journeymen will also restore any model from this era, be it a 90, 110 or 130 in any of the original bodies.
Background
What does this restoration offer? The pair sat down with us to explain.
“Although we focus on these years of Defenders, it is not to say we won’t restore the older Series models," says Graham. "We don’t partially restore anything though, every single component is rebuilt. Irrespective of the condition of the car, we take it apart. Whether some form of the work, a restoration, or replacement of parts have been done in the past six months or 10 years, we will take it apart anyway and go through all the respective parts. The result is that it doesn’t matter what the condition of the car is, the price will stay the same.
“We’ve tried to keep it simple for the customer and keep all the thinking out of it. The customer doesn’t need to have in-depth knowledge to make the right decisions during the restoration process."
Harley elaborates: “We needed a new avenue where we could take our passion. Incidentally, it has been 10 years since we founded Journeymen, so Journeymen Works was the logical next step. The journey has been so great, it has been such fun to take something Graham and I have started with a bunch of guys that we weren’t sure would last maybe even one month. Graham just always had the faith that it would work. After so many years we now just believe in whatever we do. We know we can make amazing cars, we love Land Rovers, we love South Africa and we believe in the local people and skill here. For me, all these different aspects are exciting, especially seeing an idea we have turn into a reality.”
“If I think back now, it wasn’t that we wanted to do it, it was that we couldn’t not do it. We had all of the pieces, we’ve built so may cars (including other brands – ed) over the years. Our relationship is so close that we understood already all the intricacies of working with each other. We have already been doing this for so long, so we just had to jump off the cliff and start with this new venture.”
Although the business is not even six months old, the orders have been steadily coming in.
Graham further explains that he visited Land Rover Classic Works in the UK last year, which is the official classic division of Land Rover. He said that he took a good look at the cars, and realised that there was nothing that this large OEM is doing, which they are not also doing with their cars right here in Cape Town. This further encouraged them to build the Land Rovers that they are now offering.
“Just know that you are going to build the best car possible, and if you don’t cut any corners and do everything correctly, it surely has to work.”
Part of the team is an ex-Land Rover and Morgan employee from the UK, called Adam Hues. “He has really been instrumental to getting us off the ground. He has a base level of skills and knowledge that allows him to direct his assistants for the optimum results.” Harley acknowledges that Adam is full of energy and perfectly fitted into the team.
Graham continues by explaining the connection and trust between him and Harley. “There is also a link between Harley’s thorough attention to detail in terms of engineering that has spilled over to us as a brand. Whenever we need to machine or engineer a part, he takes care of that. There is this blind trust I have that when he has done something it will be perfect."
Harley continues; “We also don’t want to lose the history of the original car. We don’t want to get rid of the 100, 200 or 300 000 km that car had already done. We love the fact that this car already had one life. This is why we make a little metal badge plate for each car with a QR code that has all the details about each respective car. These include details as well as the photos of the rebuilding process. The result is that the history of the car will always remain with it.”
Graham delves a little deeper into the details and their approach. “We believe if you do a complete rebuild in a certain way, and there is evidence of everything along the line, you protect the value of the car in a way. We try and keep it authentic to the core. We use original materials and original parts – that authenticity is of value to us as well as the customers we have.”
“It is also quite cool that the Land Rover Defender was never perfect. As much as we strive for perfection, there is perfection in imperfection. For example, no two Land Rover doors will ever shut the same way – that is just how it is.”
The building process
Having been involved in this industry for a decade, Graham and Harley knows where to go and who to contact to acquire the necessary parts. From stripping the cars, galvanising the ladder frame chassis to the complete reassembly can be done in as short a time as three months.
“Once we’ve received the car, we roll out the build process in six steps. Stage one is fully stripping the car. Stage two is when every part has arrived back from powder coating, hot dip galvanising and electro plating. The next stage is building the rolling chassis followed by putting the firewall and the rebuilt engine back into the car. Stage four includes assembling the painted body panels back on the car. Stage five the car is tested for the first time followed by stage six when the car has covered 1 000 km and we’ve iron out every snag and handed it to the customer. Only after the customer has driven 250 km do they make their final payment.”
You might wonder what happens with your product once you’ve bought it and something goes wrong? Graham explains their approach which should put future buyers at ease. “We offer a warranty and service plan with each car, which Land Rover actually didn’t offer from factory at the time. We have been able to iron out the things that tend to go wrong on these cars, which is why we are confident in offering a warranty and service plan.”
Looking at one of their latest products, the quality of the workmanship is evident, not to mention alluring owing to the fact that the car is good to go for another few decades.
Follow Journeymen Works on Instagram to see some of the best Land Rover Defenders created right here in Cape Town.